alt_f13

Yah, that was kindof stupid. The statement following it still stands, though. One example doesn't form a very good pattern.

I'm sure you meant "I think we'd have more of a chance finding organic compounds based on carbon and containing sulfur than of something based entirely on sulfur." Well, we really don't have much to go on, so I wouldn't be counting my carbon-based chickens just yet. That would be akin to saying "there's no other life in the universe because Earth is the only living planet we've found." I don't see any reason to speculate either way. Who knows, maybe David Grinspoon is just a crazy, and Sulfur based life is a stupid idea. I just like keeping my mind open to the possibilities.

You wouldn't consider "a god" (whatever that means in context to this thread) an extra-terrestrial form of life? And how can you consider one completely invisible immeasurable concept over another completely invisible immeasurable concept? In one post!?! As far as I'm concerned, gods and aliens are the same thing until we find evidence of either. At the risk of sounding like a complete hypocrite... I'm all for religious and philisophical discussion, but I tried my damndest not to let my last post steer the thread away from the subject at hand, and I think it would be beneficial for you to consider thinking about this before posting. Someone let me know if I'm out of line here... preferably not in this thread.

Ha! Not sure if that was sarcasm or not. Most BCers would say it wasn't.

You're making assumptions.

Thoughts on the forum devoted to logic and critical thinking? Would it be beneficial? Would it help this particular problem?

Your links are broken. Solaris 2002: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307479/ Solyaris 1979: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/ 1950/1979 whatever, same century.

Lol. 2001ASO = Solaris + A Clockwork Orange - 20 years I wonder how the old Solaris compares to the new one. Look it up. It's Russian. You'd like it. Its from like 1950 or something.

Agree many lots of dem tings der. I don't believe Solaris had anything to do with the afterlife. Yah, maybe it was boring, but no afterlife. The ball thing was generating copies of people by reading people's minds. The end Clooney character was a copy of the real one, and was able to remake his wife in the end, as he was of the solaris ball. Nothing about afterlife. It merely raised the same question as Star Trek did about the transporters: When you're deconstructed in one place, jumbled all around and reassembled somewhere else, are you really the same person that was taken apart? In Solaris' case, no. The Clooney character died. His copy was just that, a copy. In Star Trek, they don't go into that much detail, except when Worf is held in the transport buffer in that one episode where he grabs a worm thing, brings it back and it turns out to be a person. I guess they imply the same person is reassembled as was taken apart. But you don't think Solaris was at least an appealing view of what space faring vessels might look like in the future? What about his home? It's all beautiful and rather contemporary. I think the set designers where awesome, and should have received all sorts of accolades. I take it you didn't like "2001: A Space Odysee" either?

Since it is fiction, you obviously have some leeway. Just don't call it pseudo-mathematics (This thread just might belong in pseudoscience though :S) At this point, you're beyond me. The singularity bends space quite drastically so it's conceivable that you could use it to bend spacetime for your Alcubierre drive. If your story allows the technology to create singularities, I would have them be very unstable and collapse after small fractions of a second, temporarily warping spacetime. Though I don't know what happens when a 'micro-singularity' collapses (supernova?) you could just write it as collapsing into nothing (perhaps as the negative and positive timespace distortions in the field converge?). Who knows, this is where the fiction comes in I guess. I would use a non singularity source of energy though, as I doubt the energy you could retain from the singularity being created/maintained could anywhere match the power draw of whatever brings them into existance. Otherwise, it sounds akin to free energy or a perpetual motion machine, and I think that's something people would pick up on rather quickly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_Canada#History This isn't the full story. The major problem wasn't the Spanish going hog wild or anything. A combination of foreign viruses, whisky trade and forced integration were what really hurt the natives in Canada. Ugh. I don't know what happenned to all the net sources I used during high-school. Anyway, since confederation it's been treaty after treaty after treaty, landclaim disputes, constant commercial/traditional hunting and fishing disputes etc. Basically they were never integrated at all with society, largely due to the racist views of the European settlers, partly because they wanted to retain their ways. It was a doomed operation because they were naive to how the Europeans operated, and the Europeans took advantage of that. One of the more disturbing occurances was the institution of the so called "residential school system" where native childred were taken from their families and "Canadianized." Mostly this consisted of molestation and physical and psychological abuse. This pretty much disrupted an entire generation of native children. The "residential school system" was aventualy abolished, and the children were returned... Jesus... makes me rethink my whole stance on the subject. [edit] Took the happy winky face and canada joke out of the top of this post. ****in depressed now. Screw Canada.

Again, it's a plainly visible, literal hard-line I was referring to. [edit] Like you say, taking it further in this way would prove to be destructive. Of course, but a forum on the topic of developing or using these skills would be beneficial in promoting them too, no? Besides, those of us still struggling with circular logic and the like would have a place to ask what's what from what, rather than just being told off and served a link. There isn't really a problem with that, but alone it doesn't change the fact that the particular offender still can't sort his arse from his elbow. Like I said, it's hard to predict whether it would be used properly, but some other address of the specific issue could be helpful.

You guys are obviously from the USA. From what I've seen up here in the great white north, views are so torn you can barely tell they're from the same country. People seem to oppose the caste separation, and yet they still get all the amenities one could ask for. Welfare checks, tax exemptions, free healthcare, free post-secondary education and even gun ammo and booze checks! I'm all for helping the down and out get back on their feet, but at this point it's just lunacy! They aren't even down and out! They get more money than I do, and I still have to pay for school! Frankly, I'm for reintegration, whether they like it or not... and obviously not; who'd want to give up free money?